TLOBF Interview :: Knife World

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Photo credit: Hayley Madden

Kavus Torabi is about to release his latest labour of love under the guise of Knifeworld. The new album Buried Alone: Tales of Crushing Defeat should establish Torabi as one of the most ingenious songwriters around today with its eclectic mix of styles and instrumentation.

We talk to Kavus about beard growth, multiple musical projects, Cardiacs, and the very real danger that it’s impossible to talk about lyrics without sounding like a pretentious twat.

Welcome to Knifeworld, where everything is just so.

For those who’ve not heard of you before prior to Knifeworld, can you give us a little bit of background on how you got to this point?
Well, I suppose the first noteworthy thing I did was The Monsoon Bassoon, a five piece band, in which I was singing and playing guitar and writing all the tunes with Dan Chudley. We were going for about seven years although we didn’t start releasing records until about 1998. We’d built up quite a following and worked our way through loads of songs before then so by the time we started getting stuff out we’d become very good at doing whatever the hell it was that we did. It was really intense, you know, all living together like The Monkees but in real life and really ‘living the band’. We were shamefully broke which gave us plenty of time to write and rehearse. After it went tits up in 2001 I started writing a lot more by myself. I’d been building a little studio, The Cop’s Dream, since then and getting to be a lot more adventurous in terms of recording- it’s a lot easier not having to pay for studio time and worrying about the clock ticking when you’re trying to get something right. Since The Monsoons split I joined Cardiacs as guitarist and then about a year or so later I was asked to join Guapo too. I carried on doing music and bands with Dan Chudley but he moved to Cornwall a couple of years ago and I guess that was the push to get Knifeworld finished and put a new band together. We’d always done everything together. I do miss him terribly, though.

The Monsoon Bassoon always looked to be on the verge of greatness, what happened, and is there any likelihood of any re-issues or retrospective releases?
To my mind I think we achieved greatness in terms of the songs, the performances and the output. It was and still is very unique music, I reckon. I don’t think we released or recorded a bad song. The thing is, like I said, it was very intense, something akin to being in a cult. A sort of psychedelic cult. It seemed completely normal at the time, you just do what has to be done, it’s only looking back at that time from a different perspective that you realise what a funny thing it was to have done. The years of having absolutely no money and having to run the whole operation ourselves just broke the band down really. The magic had gone right at the end and the last couple of months were pretty uncomfortable, some people in the band weren’t even talking. It was not a good environment to get things done particularly because Dan and I were writing much more ambitious tunes. Jamie, the drummer left, which he was always doing, and I thought ‘You know what, fuck this’. There was no way we could get a different drummer…or a different anyone. It had to be us five.

I think, retrospectively, we needed to just take six months off and away from each other. We had lived the band non-stop for all those years and any resentment just got amplified because none of us could escape one another. It really was like a cult. It was worth it though, I mean, we’re all still alive and on speaking terms. I have my own label, Believers Roast, now and I’m planning on re-releasing our album, I Dig Your Voodoo, plus another album of B-sides, rarities and unreleased recordings.

Is Guapo still an ongoing concern?
Absolutely, we’ve got a few performances in France as part of the Rock In Opposition festival in September, then we’ll start recording a new album for Cuneiform.

Most people will know of you from your recent(ish) induction to the Cardiacs fold. How did that come about?
I had been a massive fan since I was sixteen, in fact Cardiacs was my favourite band. I got to know Tim Smith a little when The Monsoon Bassoon first started playing in London. He used to come to our gigs. Shortly after that I started guitar tech-ing for them, that would have been about 1996, and we became very close. He produced The Monsoon Bassoon stuff and we would hang out a lot, just dicking about really. When Jon Poole joined The Wildhearts full time in 2003 I suppose I was the obvious replacement. Monsoons had split so it felt like the right thing to do. It was a real honour to be playing for my favourite band, of course, but because I’d been around the band for a few years and we were all friends it wasn’t like going into a completely alien situation.

Your first live experience with Cardiacs came at the now legendary 3 night residency at the Garage. How did you prepare for that because the onstage personae of Cardiacs must be quite hard to slot into so quickly. And a 30+ song set must have been quite daunting. How long did it take you to learn those tunes?
Thirty six songs to master! I think it took us about three months. I loved working those tunes out and learning them. I’d never done anything like that before, you know, I’d only ever done my own thing. I discovered that I really enjoyed doing it, it’s a completely different process to writing. I threw myself into a really full on schedule where that was all I’d do. I don’t think I saw anyone outside the band for the last month. Those songs were such fun to play and very much in a different style to the way I usually play. On one hand they’re a bit more straight, in as much as there’s not too many ‘funny’ chords, mainly majors and minors, but there’s so fucking many of them, and really tricky melodies to play, a lot of my parts were originally written for sax or keyboard so I wasn’t necessarily playing in positions you might ordinarily do on the guitar. Learning that turned me into such a better player, really forced me to look at the shortcomings in my technique and try to iron them out. As for ‘the onstage persona’, it is what it is, man.

Following the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Tim Smith, it would appear that Cardiacs is on hold for the moment. Is there any likelihood of hearing your work with Cardiacs (the new LSD album) anytime soon?
Not soon, but hopefully one day. Such a shame, it’s a killer album. We came pretty close to completing the recording. What a bummer. I haven’t heard it in over a year, we were so busy on it at the time of Tim’s heart attack and subsequent stroke that I never bothered to get desk mixes. Poor Tim, it’s been such a life changing year for all the people around him so fuck knows what he must be going through. Tim is a musical genius, I wouldn’t use that word to describe anybody else but in his case it’s completely true. I think it’s absolutely heartbreaking the lack of recognition he’s received over the years, although those people who are on board are totally obsessive. He’s this country’s greatest and most singular songwriter. Bar none. It would be so fucking typical if there was a Cardiacs resurgence (hang on, that suggests that there was ever an ”surgence’) now, after all that’s happened to him. He’s still the man, man.

How did Knifeworld come about, was it an idea that has been around for a while or something that you were running concurrently with Cardiacs?
God, it’s an idea I had pre-Cardiacs. Some of the tunes I wrote while I was in The Monsoon Bassoon but they didn’t seem quite suitable for the band, a couple of the other songs I had actually written for Monsoons and the rest I wrote after. I never got balls-deep enough into it while Dan was still around, though, because I always enjoyed doing music with him. It’s easier when there’s someone else to share the burden. By the time I did the bulk of Knifeworld and finished it I was in Cardiacs, but it was largely in the few months before we started recording LSD that I really conquered the sprawling Knifeworld behemoth. I Had this completely delirious half a year while I completed and mixed Knifeworld. I hardly saw anyone and decided not to shave until it was finished. Boy, that was some beard I was sporting by the end.

Sorry there’s so many Cardiacs questions to start with, but there’s a noticeable influence (I’d compare some of it to the material from Oceanlandworld) that comes through on the new album. Was that a conscious decision? And how did you separate Knifeworld ideas from the stuff you came up with for LSD? Were there any other artists musical or otherwise that influenced the sound of the new album?
Previously, with The Monsoon Bassoon, we were very rigorous about trying to hide our influences, I mean obviously we had to work through them, but we got to a point where we were definitely operating within our own sort of ‘soundworld’. Very detailed and expansive music. I think I relaxed the reins a little with Knifeworld because I just loved the songs and that’s how they went, if you see what I mean? The Knifeworld album, Buried Alone: Tales Of Crushing Defeat, was all written pre-LSD (pre-LSD the album…not pre-LSD the ‘mind tool’) and besides, all the music on LSD was written by Tim. I had quite a big hand in the parts, arrangements and lyrics, though. I just said ‘big hand in the parts’, Jesus.

When I listen back to Buried Alone I can hear the influences in places. It’s the stuff that was ‘hard-wired’ into me at a certain age, you know, Syd Barrett, Voivod, Shudder To Think, Henry Cow, Steve Reich, Black Sabbath, Sonic Youth and XTC…that sort of thing. Obviously Cardiacs was a big part of those influences, but it probably sounds more like The Monsoon Bassoon than anything else, although to my ears it’s completely different really, specifically I think it sounds like my tunes.

What’s the writing process like? These are pretty complex arrangements, so do you have to write things down. It all sounds as if it’s a very natural process.
More often than not I hear it in my head first…sometimes with all the parts in place. I never write stuff down. It’s very instinctive and not something I give a great deal of thought to in terms of analysing it. When you have an idea for a tune you just have to follow it through. You become a slave to that tune, in a way, while writing it. This goes for lyrics too, you know instinctively what is right or what isn’t for the song. In that respect it’s not ‘experimental’ because I know exactly what I want. The process of songwriting from the initial idea can often be a massive compromise. This starts with yourself, you know, you actually start diluting the idea from the moment it leaves your head. When I hear a tune in my head, already by the time I’ve tried to work it out on the guitar it has become compromised. When you have other people involved in a band that can compromise it again. If you’re working with a producer who either doesn’t ‘get’ what it is you’re trying to do or has been told by a record company to make a you sound a certain way then you’re entering a whole new world of misery and mediocrity. I’ve always managed to avoid that by self-releasing my music, it might not necessarily be the best route if you think you want to make a lot of money with a so called ‘proper label’ (and you never really do) but if you give a fuck about the purity of what you’re doing then there’s no choice, really. With Knifeworld I wanted to see an album through with as few roadblocks as possible from conception to completion. From the composition, arrangements, lyrics through to the sound, how it would look, what format it would be released on etc. I did it on my terms, dammit!

How much input did the other members of the band have when it came to arrangements and sound. Or do you rule with an ornate Iron Fist? Is Knifeworld the closest we’ll get to a Kavus Torabi solo album, or is it a more collaborative effort?
It probably is the closest thing you’ll get to a solo album in that it wasn’t originally conceived as a band. I rehearsed all the songs with the drummer Khyam Allami, recorded them and then got to completing it by playing most of the parts myself . I had friends in to play the instruments that I couldn’t- The album has some wonderful special guests, including Max Tundra, James Larcombe, Katharine Blake and Sarah Measures. Towards the end of recording I decided it would sound really nice with some female vocals on it as well as mine, I suppose I’m just used to my stuff sounding that way after The Monsoon Bassoon, so I asked Melanie Woods to do it because she has a lovely voice. She sang in Cardiacs and drummed in Sidi Bou Said, so you might know of her. Once I’d finished it I really wanted to do it as a live, proper group. Khyam and Melanie are in the live group, plus we’ve got Craig Fortnam form North Sea Radio Orchestra on bass, Chloe Herrington and Emett Elvin from Chrome Hoof on Sax/ Basoon and Keyboards, respectively and Tom Clues who used to play in Cousteau and currently plays for Emelliana Torrini on guitar. The next record will be rehearsed, gigged and recorded as a band….it’s so much easier. This first album was like a dare to myself to see if I could actually do it. I have now and I feel it’s mapped out some of the territory that I want Knifeworld to operate in, but fuck doing it like that again. Too much misery and introspection and not enough laughs. Some people love the solitary thing and I do up to a point, but one of the things that suits me best as a musician is that I’m a social creature, if I wasn’t then I’d be a painter or a writer. I enjoy writing music alone but I can’t wait to record another album where I only have to worry about getting my guitar and singing right, performance wise.

Apparently you’re playing a host of curious instruments on the album. What constitutes curious – presumably you’ve not borrowed anything from Thomas Truax?
I wish, he has quite an arsenal. They probably sound curious because most people aren’t used to hearing them on a rock record with guitars and drums. I like to collect funny instruments. Even if they can only make one specific sound or are good for only one thing then I’ll find a place for them. I have a lovely persian santoor which I used quite a bit on the album and also this brilliant, really clunky toy piano which is all over it.

Knifeworld has been described as having an “English” sound to it. Do you tend to agree, and what does the term “English” mean to you when applied to music?
Well, I’m all about the otherness, which is why I’m most comfortable with the ‘psychedelic’ tag than anything else. It seems to cover all the bases, although I think in some people’s minds it implies an inherent ‘sixties-ness’, which is not what I mean. Some of the most psychedelic records I can think of have very little to do with that sixties sound, for instance My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, Steve Reich’s Octet, Voivod’s Nothingface, Magma’s KA. Truly psychedelic records.

I suppose the English thing is because on one level Knifeworld is rooted in that tradition of Syd Barrett, XTC, The Soft Boys kind of thing that people think of as the ‘English sound’ in terms of some of the of melodies and key changes, but I think like with, say, Cardiacs, The Monsoon Bassoon and Guapo it’s sonically a lot more far reaching and brutal in places and a little more skewed and complex, structurally. It’s funny with the English thing, I’m actually a Persian but I’ve lived over here since I was two and just been immersed in that so called western sound. Whatever that is.

What are the main lyrical themes that you explore on the record? A song like No More Dying is quite an aggressive heartfelt number. Pissed Up on Brake Fluid or Corpses Feuding Underground have quite in your face titles, while the album title itself “Buried Alone: Tales of Crushing Defeat” is somewhat bleak to say the least. Is there a bit of musical therapy going on?
Therapy eh? Maybe. I’m not a particularly dark person but as with the music, the lyrics have to be ‘just so’. I’m always a little more reluctant to discuss the lyrics than I am the music… mainly because I don’t want to sound like a pretentious twat and I think I probably would. Often having lyrics explained can spoil the magic. It’s nice when they work completely with the music. Poetry is poetry for a reason, it’s meant to be spoken. Lyrics are meant to go with music. I think having beautiful poetic lyrics that really say something succinctly to you is wonderful, like in the case of Leonard Cohen, where the tunes are quite sparse and straightforward but I think with expansive music, like Knifeworld, the music is ‘saying a lot’ itself so I don’t want to reduce its effect by having lyrics that are always about definite things. That said, Pissed Up On Brake Fluid is the most ‘obviously about something’ lyric on the album, it uses that old songwriting trick of analogy, which is something I don’t generally do. I think it works because it’s a more straightforward song. Hopefully in the most part they’re opaque enough to create a real atmosphere without going too obviously into the ‘woe is me’ territory. A feeling of mystery and sense of ‘the other’ is a good thing. I mean, they’re very autobiographical and pertinent to the time they were written, to me they all seem to be obviously ‘about’ what they’re about.

I just really contradicted myself there, didn’t I? Hey that’s what it’s all about, man, yes? Contradictions and shit? And I sounded like a pretentious twat.

But you know, loosely, the usual crap: Self loathing, existential angst, the end of the world and JUST WHAT THE HELL IS REALLY GOING ON IN THIS FUNNY THING WE’RE ALL BRIEFLY TIED TO CALLED LIFE?

I love words, particularly the English language which is such a bastardisation of different dialects and its own history, a phrase can have so many meanings depending on what context it’s put into, on top of that once you start fucking with sentence structure and smashing some words next to others that don’t really belong there then a whole new meaning emerges. It’s weird, language, isn’t it? In many ways it is so reductive. I mean, some emotions, particularly those inspired by music, just cannot be put into words… but it’s all we have. That’s why I think many music reviews do such a disservice to the artist by only writing in terms of ‘genres’ or ‘styles’ or in fact, as is more often the case, haircuts.

The title ‘Buried Alone’ very much refers to the whole process of recording the thing and my fear of not being able to finish it or make it sound the way I wanted. It’s funny having gone through that and now doing an interview about it, this part is good fun, not that the recording wasn’t good fun but it was euphoria mixed with crippling self-doubt. I didn’t finish it that long ago but I feel like I’m a different me from the me I was then. I was terrified I’d die and it would never come out. Typical musician…me, me, me.

I like the Tales Of Crushing Defeat thing, it’s like those books you’d see other boys reading as a child, you know, Astonishing Heroism: Stories Of Great Bravery or Brutal Victory: Legends Of Self Importance And Strength… that kind of thing. They always looked really boring, so Buried Alone: Tales Of Crushing Defeat is my own version of that, that’s the book I would have wanted to read.

Are Knifeworld going to be doing much in the way of live performances and what can we expect?
Oh man, I’m on it right now. Just getting this seven-piece band together, it’s the most ambitious undertaking I’ve done so far. Yes, lot’s of gigs. We have an album launch on the 18th August at 93 Feet East in London. We’ll be playing maybe seven songs from the album and a couple of new ones, after that I just want to get this fucker ‘out there’

You’re in so many different bands/projects at the moment (Chrome Hoof, Mediaeval Babes, Cardiacs, Guapo etc) do you find time to do anything other than music and sleep?
It just seems to work, they all fit around each other. I only play in bands I like, so in that respect I haven’t descended to being a session musician, I turn a lot of stuff down. On a really base level I have to ‘get by’ financially and this is all I can really do. I have to prioritise Knifeworld now, though, because it’s my thing. Hopefully there won’t be too much clashes in activity but if there are then I’ll probably have to have a rethink.

Knife World on MySpace